


O'Hana

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Families of Choice, Fix-It, Kid Fic, Multi, Romance, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best thing about legends is that they change - but they never really end...</p>
            </blockquote>





	O'Hana

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Burn Notice Kink Meme](http://burnkink.livejournal.com/1114.html)

They might have guessed that something was wrong with Charlie. His calm was prenatural, almost spooky, during the full trip from America to Ireland. It took two years of promises and confusion and scoldings before they both came to their senses. By that time Charlie had taken to screaming at the sound of thunder and wetting the bed, and Fiona had already diagnosed the child as emotionally troubled via doctor internet. When he developed panic attacks and started trashing about his little room they both knew he was in trouble.

Fiona’s further armchair diagnostics suggested post-traumatic stress disorder, and she spent days stalking the internet for available help. Hiding away in snowy and quiet Ireland, unable to contact civilization on pains of deportation for Michael and Charlie, they all realized a fresh move needed to be made. The best chance for the child – the best therapists – were all available in Miami.

Michael looked at Fiona, shrugged. 

Sometimes paradise was a temporary concept. 

She rolled her eyes and packed the snowglobe while Michael started telling Charlie about the time they beat a drug dealer by creating cake icing bricks of imitation C4.

*** 

The postcard arrived in Sam’s mailbox four days before they snuck back into town on a prop plane. He barely had time to ready the loft before Fiona barged in and started demanding ceviche and frozen yogurt. What greeted her eyes made them bulge out, and even Mike sputtered.

The loft had been renovated; beautifully, as a matter of fact, with a fish tank and a mini-bar, an actual bathroom and a balcony; thick carpets, plush couches, and an HD TV the length of the furthest wall.

Sam shrugged, said that he and Elsa had wanted a comfortable place to crash in town – which was hard to find with the whole former-fugitive thing. He and Jesse had been doing jobs on the side, and their latest client had been making things tough…hey, Charlie, that yogurt’s for uncle Mike…and anyway, Sam had been staying in town. And using Mike’s abandoned Charger. Sorry, Mike. 

Michael reclaimed the keys to the car with silence as he mopped Charlie’s face.

*** 

Charlie had been dozing in a post-dinner coma on the couch for a good hour before the thumping entered Michael’s conscious. And any thumping – even of the rhythmically musical kind – was enough to draw Michael’s attention. He and Fi slunk down the steps and into the back door of what had once been a nightclub, guns at the ready.

And discovered a bar. There was a bar downstairs. A nice, well-stocked bar loaded with salt of the earth types dancing to live music and swilling drinks while shouting at the Dolphins game, and Sam tending court behind the bar. The truth came out - Sugar had sold the property to Sam cheaply due to the fire damage, and Elsa had offered to refurbish it for him. He’d wiled away hours down there, hanging out with the clientele, happily helping them, and then joining Jesse on jobs whenever time permitted. It had taken Sam six months to realize that Elsa had been keeping him busy for a reason – and then only when he found her banging one of the bellhops in an elevator. He’d been living alone ever since.

*** 

Beer helped everything but Michael’s growing headache. He imbibed enough to force Sam to carry him upstairs and tuck him into bed.

Then he woke with Fi’s face buried in his neck, her hair glued to his tongue, and to the sound of Charlie demanding pancakes. This was the new normal – or it could be. If he dared to get used to it.

***

The warm air was doing them all good. Charlie had started to smile more, and the therapist he’d been seeing helped him enormously. Fiona enrolled him in preschool and looked into licensing detective agency under a fake name. Michael resisted, did odd jobs, pretended that this part of his life had ended when they’d set sail for the Northern coast.

Indeed, Michael talked loudly about going back to Ireland, but Fiona started buying shoes and potted plants, and Charlie’s mattress was blessedly dry, and Sean sent them a text suggesting that Michael Westen would, just possibly, not be welcome back in the Emerald Isle due to that whole op gone-south thing. 

Sam made a terrible joke about buying Michael a mask to help him fight crime, since no agency would hire him. Fiona rolled her eyes, and then Jesse laughed and dropped a file on the table.

He and Sam huddled together with Fiona, and Michael felt a jolt of envy as he wiped Charlie’s sticky fingers on his linen pants. 

*** 

It happened naturally, but with such stunning quickness that Michael never saw it coming. One minute they were celebrating Charlie’s first school play. As a reward for not biting his teacher or forgetting his lines, they sent him off for ice cream with Uncle Jesse (and as a reward for sitting through the play, Uncle Jesse got to use Charlie’s charm to help him pick up a few single moms). Fiona finally got her ceviche, and Sam sprung for a couple of cases of imported beer. One of them had been telling a story about the blue-haired prig of an aid who ran Charlie’s class, and Fiona laughed and well – a drunken Fiona is hard to resist. Michael leaned in, and they kissed for an obscenely long amount of time and only belatedly realized Sam was still here.

He said something about going but Michael stood up, stumbled toward him, and pressed his lips to Sam’s forehead.

The place where he’d struck him during their underwater fight two years before.

Going from kissing Fiona to kissing Sam felt so natural that he didn’t bother to think about it. When Sam carried him to the bedroom, Fiona at their heels, it felt right, perfect. 

As if, after their Irish sojourn, after their bitter separation, they’d all finally come home.

***

Sam’s voice came from the left side of Fiona’s breast.

“You know, me and Jesse have been having a problem with this job. The kid smuggled twelve thou in diamonds for a hood and he was stupid enough to do it on camera. We him to turn himself in, but you know how it is. Looks like it could need a little of the old Michael Westen charm. You game, brother?”

Michael and Fiona traded shrugs. 

There were worse ways to spend your life. 

*** 

There was a waterglobe on the mantle with a chunk of the Blarney stone floating inside of it.

When Charlie asked her questions, Fiona rolled her eyes and told him to ask his Uncle Sam.

By the time Sam told Charlie he used to be a Navy Seal until…, the kid was off and texting.

*** 

Michael Westen was a legend in Miami now.

And the best thing about legends is that they change over time, but they never, ever end.

***

 _This is my family. I found them all on my own. It's little, and it's broken, but it's good. Yeah. Still good._ \- **Lilo And Stitch**.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses characters from **Burn Notice** , all of whom are the property of the **USA Network**. No money was gained from the writing of this fanfiction and all are used under the strictures of of the Berne Convention.


End file.
